Cyberpunk Read Online Free PDF Page A

even with his old man, and I had a new
    concept I was itching to try out, but Lisa’s eyes lit up ‘cause Rayno
    turned to her, first.
    She sang, “I wanna burn Lewis, burn Lewis.”
    “Oh fritz.” Georgie complained. “You did that last week.”
    “He gave me another F on a theme!” She was so mad about it, she
    missed the beat.
    “ I never get F’s. If you’d read books once in a—”
    “Georgie,” Rayno said softly, “Lisa’s on line.” That settled that.
    Lisa’s eyes were absolutely glowing.
    With Rayno’s help, Lisa got back up to normal CityNet level and
    charged a couple hundred overdue books to Lewis’ libsys account. Then
    she ordered the complete Encyclopedia Britannica queued up to start
    zapping out whenever Lewis turned on his office telecopier. Lisa could
    be nasty, but she was kinda short on style.
    I got next turn. Georgie and Lisa kept watch while I took over the
    Nova. Rayno looked over my shoulder. “Something new this week?”
    “Airline reservations. I was with my Dad two weeks ago when he set
    up a business trip, and flagged on maybe getting some fun. I scanned the
    ticket clerk real careful and picked up a few of her access codes.”
    “Okay, show me what you can do.”
    Right. OurNet, to CityNet, to the front door of Alegis. I knocked. It
    answered. Getting inside was so easy that I just wiped a couple of
    reservations first, to see if there were any bells or whistles.
    None. No source checks, no lockwords, no confirm codes. I erased a
    couple dozen people without so much as an You Sure About That?
    (Y/N). “Geez,” I said, “there’s no deep secures at all!”
    Rayno grinned. “I keep telling you, Olders are even dumber than
    they look. Georgie? Lisa? C’mon over here and see what we’re
    running.”
    Cyberpunk 1.0 21
    ©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
    Georgie was real curious and asked lots of questions, but Lisa just
    looked bored, snapped her gum, and tried to dance in closer to Rayno.
    Then Rayno said, “Time to get off Sesame Street. Purge a flight.”
    I did. It was simple as a save. I punched a few keys, entered, and an
    entire plane disappeared from all the reservation files. Boy, they’d be
    surprised when they showed up at the airport. I started purging down the
    line, but Rayno interrupted.
    “Maybe there’s no deep secures, but clean out a whole block of their
    data space and it’ll stand out. Watch this.” He took the Nova from me
    and cooked up a little worm in RAM that hunted down and wiped every
    flight that departed at 17:07, from now ‘til NukeDay or they found the
    worm, whichever came first. “ That’s how you do these things without
    waving a flag.” He pressed ENTER, and it was running wild and free.
    “That’s sharp,” Georgie chipped in, to me. “Mike, you’re a genius.
    Where do you get these ideas?” Rayno got a real funny look in his eyes.
    “My turn,” Rayno said, exiting the airline system.
    “What be next in this here stack?” Lisa chanted.
    “Yeah, I mean, after garbaging the airlines ... “ Georgie didn’t
    realize he was supposed to shut up.
    “Georgie, Mike,” Rayno hissed. “Keep watch!” Soft, he added, “It’s
    time to run The Big One.”
    “You sure?” I asked. “Rayno, I don’t think it’s ready.”
    “ I’m ready.”
    Georgie got whiney. “We’re gonna get in big trouble—”
    “Wimp,” spat Rayno. Georgie shut up.
    Me and Georgie had been working on The Big One for over two
    months, penetrating systems and burying moles, but I still didn’t feel
    real solid about it. It almost made a clean if/then/else. If The Big One
    worked/ then we’d be rich/ else ... it was the else part I didn’t have down.
    Georgie and me took up lookout while Rayno got down to business.
    He got back into CityNet, called the cracker exefile out of its hiding
    place, and poked it into Merchant’s Bank & Trust. I’d gotten into them
    the old-fashioned way, through the PhoneCo port, but never messed with
    Cyberpunk 1.0